Android Now Ahead Of Apple's iOS In Tablet Market Share

The International Data Corporation (IDC) just released its quarterly report on tablet shipments for the first quarter of 2013. The data show that tablet shipments have exploded, up 142% year over year.

IDC also reports that Google's Android powered more tablets shipped last quarter than Apple's iOS operating system on iPads. An IDC spokesperson said Android actually overtook iOS on tablets in the third quarter of 2012.

It's a similar trend to the one we see in smartphones. Apple is consistently one of the top vendors, but Android powers more devices as whole since so many manufacturers have access to the open source OS. IDC counts the Kindle Fire as an Android tablet even though Amazon heavily modifies the software and removes Google's app store and other services.

According to IDC, Apple was the number one tablet vendor last quarter and took nearly 40% of the market, largely thanks to the smaller and cheaper iPad Mini. Samsung was number two with almost 18% of the market, followed by Asus and Amazon.

It's also worth noting that Microsoft shipped about 900,000 Surface tablets last quarter. That number includes the Surface Pro, which launched in February.